Dora must've been glorious then, because she's a really good plane now. I am neutral about the 30mms - they are what make her as effective as she is in ground attack but they are at best a sidegrade from the 20mms in air combat because while their muzzle velocity might be the same, their ballistics aren't so hitting a fighter with all three weapon sizes (13,20,30) is quite a challenge.

LOL, this HAS to be the worst plane in the game. Words just can't express its lack of capabilities. I have to run away if ANY other plane looks in my direction, and the control surfaces are the first thing to go out when a few bullets hit you. Oh wait, the engine too.

Haha, got enough XP to get past it. Taking a breather before trying the A-5, so I'm trying a heavy now.

For the A-5, prioritise getting the additional 2x20mms first, then throw everything at the engine. This plane lives or dies by how quickly it can accelerate and how fast it can run. If you found the A-1 difficult to fly, the A-5 might be a challenge : its main advantage is its terrifying forward firepower.

LOL, this HAS to be the worst plane in the game. Words just can't express its lack of capabilities. I have to run away if ANY other plane looks in my direction, and the control surfaces are the first thing to go out when a few bullets hit you. Oh wait, the engine too.

Haha, got enough XP to get past it. Taking a breather before trying the A-5, so I'm trying a heavy now.

I hated the A-1, but love the A-5 and my premie A-8. The A-1's guns are awful. 2x 20mm is nothing special on a plane that can't turn.

4x 20mm and 2x 7.62 are another story when loaded with Universal, though. The A-5 is fast, hits hard, and loves to set things on fire. It also climbs much better than the A-1 (at least, it feels that way), meaning you can much more effectively hunt heavies and bombers.

I meant I bought back the A-5, where I left off 11 months ago. However, your videos will nevertheless be instructive. I have engine guru and uprated engine. I have the top 20mm, but I was going to upgrade the engine before the machine guns, both of which I see you suggested back in January. I also applied the nice gold/black/white paint scheme that looks spiffy.

I don't understand how to survive in this plane. It can't turn and can't go very high, and stalls VERY easily. I'm an easy kill for any weak plane that notices me, not to mention AA has an easy time shredding it as well. Good guns are useless when the enemy is always behind you, and if you run away to let the boost regenerate you're basically surrendering. Like the quote from the movie "The only way to win, is not to play." Or, is this plane an early April Fools joke? ;)

I understand your frustration with the A-1, but you have to grind through it to get to the A-5.

I've had considerable success with the A-5, but it does require a different skill set. There are some great suggestions here that will help you better understand the "Butcher Bird".

I use it to Boom n Zoom on the unsuspecting. I don't just hop into the fray, I gain as much altitude and pick on the heavy's and GAA's, then boost out of the way, keeping wings level and not climbing too steeply. I want to keep my profile as minimal as possible until I'm out of range.

Huh, you're much lower than I go with it, and turning much more than I risk, and using half your boost more frequently than I risk. I can't look around, so I've been going way up high and from there everything is a tiny dot, so without boosting in it takes a long time to get to an attack, do a quick in-and-out, and anything behind me is an anonymous arrow at the edge of the view.

Is there any way to map the camera control to the analog thumbstick on my throttle controller? The only thing the controls setup lets me do is put individual directions on hats, which isn't too useful because it just snaps to each direction and then back forward - anything in between flashes by in a blur.

I used to do that a lot but these days I'm more confident in my abilities and airplane to take it closer in and snap up the unwary.

It should be noted that my A-5 is the most upgraded airplane in my hangar with all my equipment fully calibrated Ultimate tier stuff with specially chosen bonuses on a Specialized airplane strapped with all gold consumables and a 9 point pilot so my risk-taking is backed up by a ton of money (both real and in-game) that's been sunk into this machine.

Bf 110 E was attacking something else ahead of me and I went for the attack and it started turning towards me, and we went into the looping turning fight routine. That first pass was the last I saw of it as it was tuning tighter than me, hitting me on each go-around, and in 3 loops I was dead. Now filed under "not gonna do that again..." Presumably an altitude-related performance difference, but the bots had never been able to turn on me like that before so I was surprised this time.

Bf 110 E was attacking something else ahead of me and I went for the attack and it started turning towards me, and we went into the looping turning fight routine. That first pass was the last I saw of it as it was tuning tighter than me, hitting me on each go-around, and in 3 loops I was dead. Now filed under "not gonna do that again..." Presumably an altitude-related performance difference, but the bots had never been able to turn on me like that before so I was surprised this time.

Was it a vertical circle? The 190s have abysmal vertical performance and need you to really hammer the boost to keep it in a tight turn. They bleed speed catastrophically and accelerate very poorly in a dive which might be how the 110 was turning on you - he has better energy retention. In a horizontal turning fight, use your roll and rudder to cut across the radius of the circle and get on his tail - your rate of roll is phenomenal and you have a lot of boost: use those to power your way through a fight if you get into one. If someone tries to take you into the vertical, ignore him - either use your roll and rudder to again cut across the loop or simply level out and drop the hammer out of there and either run or force them into a horizontal turnfight (for heavies)

I love it when the the B-17 trundles straight towards me at less than 2000 meters altitude 3 times in a row. Feel sorry for that guy getting pounded out of the battle so badly though. Of course...their Spitfires shot me down twice in return...because that's just what Spitfires always do, every--single--game.